Happy Tuesday Friends! Have you received your free 747 yet? Apparently they’re giving them away in cereal: Presidential Pardon Puffs – now with extra flakes of denial.
It’s a weird time in the world of AI and marketing.
One camp says: “If you’re not using AI for everything – blogs, decks, ads, social – you’re already behind.”
The other? “I only use it for summaries. Or, okay, maybe a first draft… but never final work.”
Meanwhile, there are:
- Execs banning AI until copyright lawyers finish their coffee.
- People paying $997 for prompt templates to “unlock the real magic.”
- And the artisanal crowd proudly posting “No AI used” badges for handcrafted, grass-fed, non-GMO social media posts
Regardless of which group you’re in, everyone’s obsessed with the same thing: speed. Faster content. More throughput. Less cost.
But maybe we’ve missed the point.
Wait a sec… before we dig in, a quick word from… well, me.
<Stefon from Saturday Night Life enters…>
If your current content strategy is “just keep publishing and hope for the best,” congratulations: you need the hottest new workshop in the US..
This workshop has everything: outdated frameworks in Helvetica Neue, a case study from 2019 that still kind of works, three people who swear by different definitions of “thought leadership,” a proprietary model named after a forest animal, something called the Measurement Pyramid, which may actually be a gameshow from the 1970s.
At one point, someone says “snackable content,” and no one flinches. That’s how you know it’s working. Led by us strategy nerds with just enough optimism to keep going and just enough bitterness to make it honest.
Need a fresh perspective on what’s working (and what’s not) – let’s talk.
<this ends the part where I ask you to buy something>
Okay… Quickly – let’s get back to it before the show Andor makes us feel dumb for not understanding a whisper-fight about logistics.
In this episode of LENS:
- Zoom Lens: Maybe let’s look at the real opportunity of Generative AI
- Wide Angle Lens: The Onion is opening a creative shop
- Lens Flare: Faster Isn’t Smarter – It’s Just Faster
- Let’s roll….
ZOOM LENS: THESE AREN’T THE DROIDS WE’RE LOOKING FOR
If you know your Star Wars lore, you’ll remember that droids are often treated with suspicion. In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan Kenobi sits in a greasy-spoon diner with his friend Dexter Jettster, who explains why droids can’t be fully trusted: “They have no wisdom.”
Obi-Wan agrees: “If droids could think, there’d be none of us here.”
The subtext is clear: Droids have data but not discernment. They can execute, but they can’t judge. They can act, but they can’t choose.
That sounds a lot like the debates we’re having about AI in Marketing today. AI-as-Droid is a comforting metaphor that makes technology feel manageable. You get to hand off the tedious stuff (summarizing research, repurposing webinars, outlining presentation decks) so that you can get back to the “real” creative work. But isn’t it funny that no one can then actually pinpoint what that “real” creative work is?
And it’s precisely how many generative AI tools are marketed today. The pitch is simple: Dump your data into our enterprise-grade AI blender, and – voilà – you get hyper-personalized content, frictionless creative. We are, quite literally, Uncle Owen and Luke buying droids. We have no use for a protocol droid who can be an ambassador. We just need one that can speak the language of “moisture vaporators”.
Which is why most of us are still playing safe – delegating at the edges, tinkering in the sandbox, pretending the future isn’t barreling at us like a freight train.
But Maybe the Point Isn’t Speed
What if AI isn’t here to help us move faster? What if it’s here to help us finally unwind ourselves from the axle of speed as the foundational value in marketing and business?
What if AI doesn’t replace our judgment, but instead requires it. In other words, what if we saw Generative AI not as something that helps with speeding our output and lubricating throughput, but rather something that helps us slow down our input and purposely add friction to our flow.
- Instead of churning out subject lines, we might use it analyze the emotional tone of your best ones and make us think of others.
- Instead of summarizing reports, ask it to uncover patterns you’ve missed so that we might rewrite it four more times instead of twice.
- Instead of drafting copy faster, ask it to challenge your assumptions so that we get to a better, or bigger, idea.
In each case, the AI output is the least interesting part. The value lies in the spark that helps you wrestle with ideas more deeply and reach beyond what you already know.
In this model, AI doesn’t think for you. It challenges you think more.
This Isn’t the End of People
Reframing your lens on generative AI in this way changes how we use it and why.
The question isn’t, “What can AI help us execute?” And it’s not, “What can AI do that we can’t?” It’s: “What might we explore now that we couldn’t see before?”
If we bought into this model, then contrary to the headlines, AI isn’t a cost-cutting tool. It’s a new capability – a thought-expanding one. It suggests that we don’t need fewer marketers. It means you need more, better ones – and more diverse perspectives, sharper judgment, and teams built for collaboration, not just content throughput.
This is where brands trade automation for articulation. Where we stop asking “What can AI do?” and start asking “What can we see differently because of it?”
A recent study found that AI saved companies, on average, only 2.8% of work time – about an hour per week. In some cases, workloads even increased as teams spent more time refining, validating, and reasoning through what AI produced.
Most of the media covering this research positioned it as a failure to deliver on AI’s promise. But I see something else. I don’t see failure. I see valuable friction. Maybe companies are finally getting it right. They’re not automating people’s thinking. They’re investing in it.
Hmmm… you’ll excuse me while I go reflect a little longer on what I actually believe.
Because that? That’s the real opportunity.
If you’re interested in digging into the nuance a bit more, you can read the full piece here.
Let’s Zoom out bit…
WIDE ANGLE LENS: INVESTING IN FUNNY
Let’s get it all in focus, shall we?
🤖 ICYMI: No Joke – The Onion Is A New Creative Agency
In a move that’s equal parts brilliant and overdue, The Onion has officially launched its own creative agency: America’s Finest Creative Agency. Led by CMO Leila Brillson, the team is offering brands everything from stunt marketing to email copy to social-first vertical video – all crafted by writers who’ve honed their skills crafting headlines that make you laugh, wince, and question your life choices.
This isn’t The Onion’s first foray into brand work (remember Onion Labs?), but this iteration is leaner, sharper, and well… just awesome. While other agencies are busy feeding prompts to AI and calling it strategy, The Onion is betting on something radical: actual writers. As Brillson puts it, “AI is not set up for those nuances. It’s set up to flatten something into the broadest and most middle-ground content it can.”
As a marketing fanboy, I’m here for it. Because in a world where everyone’s trying to be everything, The Onion is staying true to its roots – and inviting brands to get smarter (and funnier) in the process.
LENS FLARE: MOVE SLOW AND FIX THINGS
A recent lesson-learned from one of our latest client engagements:
A client came to us at the beginning of this year – mid-sprint. The ask: “We need to move faster. We need AI. We need scale.” I asked: “How fast is fast enough?”
Silence.
Their team was churning out more content than ever – and getting less from it. Automation had amplified inefficiencies. Everyone was busy, but no one was sure why. And, more importantly, the pressure to go faster was like that scene in Amadeus when the Emperor tells Mozart – “it’s just too many notes, just remove a few and it will be good.” And Mozart says, “which notes shall I remove?”
We offered something radical: maybe use automation technology and AI as tacit permission to slow down. So, what did that mean? We helped them do it: we paused the publishing calendar (no not stopping the presses all the way, but yes reducing the quantity), mapped their actual content lifecycle, clarified roles, and aligned the work to real business goals.
Two months later, they were producing less — and getting better results. Now – they’re not working any less hard, but they’re also feeling less pressure, getting better results, and…
The lesson:
Speed only works if you know where you’re going.
Otherwise, it’s just burnout in motion.
LENS CAP: FINISH WITH A FLOURISH
🍷 Finishing Notes…
So, if we let go of the AI as output assistant metaphor (and the marketing replacement nightmare), what’s left?
Maybe AI is your analyst. Your fog light. Your tilted mirror. Maybe it’s the second brain in the room – unbound by your assumptions – but relying on your judgment to make meaning.
Or maybe it’s just a tool built not to automate creativity but to provoke it. A tool that helps marketers step out of the default drive for speed and gives them a reason to finally slow down.